PDs accept document assurances

The Progressive Democrats have accepted assurances from the Department of Health that a draft Green Paper rewritten at the behest of the Minister was a "working document" rather than the final version.

The matter was discussed yesterday between the Tanaiste's programme manager and her counterpart at the Department. A PD spokesman said clarification had been "sought and given".

The party's representative on the Cabinet sub-committee preparing the Green Paper, Ms Liz O'Donnell, said on Sunday she would be looking for an explanation why the Minister had had the text changed without advising other committee members.

Last night, before attending a PD parliamentary meeting at which the issue was to be discussed, she said she was "taking the Minister at face value" in his assurance that the changes concerned textual clarity rather than "matters of substance".